Race fan, stock car driver, track promoter, racing memorabilia expert and collector and speedway historian, Ted Knorr passed away on Jan. 24 at the age of 87.
Knorr was a graduate of Indiana’s Rensselear High School and was a member of the school’s undefeated football team in 1954. Witnessing some of his earliest races in the Chicago area, Monticello, Ind., and Rensselaer, Ind., Knorr was on hand for some of the first races at the Jasper County Fairgrounds in Rensselaer in 1953.
In 1954, the half-mile dirt track was shortened up to an almost-circular third-mile track with Knorr’s father, Ted Knorr II, a successful Rensselaer businessman, taking over the track’s promotional reins in 1957 in addition to heading up the racing at the old Monticello Speedway.
With the elder Knorr doing the promoting, young Ted became a race car driver, eventually scoring a feature win. Working at the local A&P grocery store after his high school graduation, Knorr, who also did some go-kart racing, joined the Indiana State Police force in 1964.
As the 1966 racing season approached, Knorr was all set to join the stock car ranks of the United States Auto Club, which was known for its championship races in the Midwest with many Indianapolis 500 winners and drivers among its stock car competitors.
A former-Charlie Glotzbach 1964 Chevrolet with a 400 horsepower big block Chevy engine was Knorr’s ride with No. 36 on the sides as Knorr assumed a new racing name – “Ted Wilson.” The new racing moniker was to be used to keep Knorr’s racing “under the radar” from his full-time employer.
A bad crash at the “Milwaukee Mile” in August of 1966 ended Knorr’s USAC racing career with the team rebuilding the car for a season of racing at Illiana Motor Speedway in Schererville, Ind., close to Knorr’s home in Lowell, Ind. Knorr finished seventh in the Illiana standings in 1967.
With the old coupes giving way to late model stocks at Rensselaer, Henry’s Speedway near Boswell, Ind., and the Broadway Speedway in Crown Point, Knorr hooked up with car owner J.C. Foreman, from the Black Oak area of Gary, and began racing Foreman’s ’57 Chevy in late 1968. Wheeling the Foreman-owned Chevy No. 3, Knorr (“Ted Wilson”) won the first late model stock car race at Rensselear in 1969 in addition to winning some features at the Broadway dirt oval.
“Henry’s was again running on Saturday nights but was a long haul from Black Oak so we ran some at Broadway and won two or three features that summer and continued doing well at Rensselaer,” reminisced Knorr many years later. “(I) lost the title on the final nights’s 50 lapper (at Rensselaer) because the ‘idiot driver’ forgot how to point race and blew the right rear (tire) while leading with ten laps to go…and lost the title by two points.”
He captured the late model track championship at Henry’s Speedway in 1970, wheeling a Chevy with a Ron Dunmore (“Win More with Dunmore”) engine.
“(In) 1970, I won the championship at Henry’s running Ralph Wheelan’s ‘69 Chevy convertible with a Ronnie Dunmore motor,” recalled Knorr more than 40 years later. “It (the car) needed a real race motor because I think it was a former Raceway Park chassis and it weighed a ton. (I) couldn’t keep it on the bottom but could ride wide open into the high banked corners and sent sparks flying off the concrete (walls) many times during the races.”
In 1971, Knorr’s driving days were over as he was forced to quit by the Indiana State Police. Knorr’s dad had given up race promoting after 1965 but came back to Indiana in 1971 to promote the Rensselear oval, now known as Rensselear Raceway. Sadly, Knorr Senior passed away in October of 1971, leaving the management of the track up to Ted and his brother, Gerry.
Knorr promoted the Rensselaer dirt track through the 1985 season, hosting weekly racing on Sunday nights. The track’s annual season-ending Brooks Ford 100/Northern Indiana Dirt Track Championship race became one of the Midwest’s premiere dirt track events with the likes of Earl J. Hubert, Dave Whitcomb, Bob Pierce, Roger Long, Paul Shafer and Dick Potts among those claiming victories. Potts was a nine-time Rensselaer late model champion.
For several years, Knorr also promoted Henry’s Speedway, or Chase Raceway as it was known then, and formed the Illiana Clay Racing Club, which operated from 1975 until the early 1980s, naming an overall champion between the two tracks and later the Broadway and Kankakee, Ill., dirt ovals. Knorr was an original member of Bob Memmer’s United Midwest Promoters sanctioning body.
After his promoting days were over, Ted Knorr became interested in the history of the sport and an expert regarding racing memorabilia. Retiring from the Indiana police force in 1992, he and his wife Cathy could be seen at numerous swap meets and memorabilia shows throughout the area.
For many years, Knorr was involved with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in several capacities. He loaned numerous pieces from his “500” collection to the speedway’s museum for display. He also originated the largest-ever auto racing memorabilia show at speedway, the day before the 500. Knorr even took a vintage ride or two at the famed speedway, including in 2012.
Ted Knorr was a true racer.
